Now this is just getting ridiculous...

Feeding Elliot has always been a challenge. I suppose I should be happy that he CAN eat now, but seriously? This is getting a little ridiculous. We cannot get through one bottle without him gagging, choking, coughing, spitting up, and having at least two meltdowns. Mind you- this is for one measly 2 ounce bottle! And THEN, once he finally finishes the bottle (or lately... once he has eaten an ounce and refuses more) if I DARE try to have him sit or lay flat after he eats, he screams as if I were trying to kill him. The only positions he can tolerate after eating are either laying on his belly, but he will spit up a lot more, or being dangled by his armpits. How in the WORLD that is comfortable, I have no idea. But he seems to love it.
Since his belly is still incapable of holding any more than two ounces at a time, this is a battle that we fight at least twelve times a day. I counted, and yesterday I made him a grand total of FIFTEEN bottles. FIFTEEN! This makes for a very frustrated mama and baby.
I used to think this was mostly a belly problem, but ever since we made the switch to formula, Elliot has been a whole different baby. He's had SO MUCH less gas and is pooping regularly, once a day! That is no small feat for my little constipation king. During the small windows of time that he is not either starving, eating, or recovering from eating- he is SO HAPPY. No screaming. No straining and grunting. All smiley and babbly and utterly adorable. I wish I could see a whole lot more of that side of him.
I'm thinking what some of our NICU nurses suspected- that he had reflux- is true. The symptoms were easily masked and/or overlapped by all the GI tract symptoms and issues, but now that those seem to have cleared up, it's quite obvious. So, we have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. Let's hope we come home with some sort of magical remedy that will make this all much better!